


Kiss-In, Kiss Me

by NaoNazo



Category: Les Miserables
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual!Enjolras, Boys Kissing, Feelings, Idiots in Love, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3535349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaoNazo/pseuds/NaoNazo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unfortunately for Grantaire, the gods of genetics, or the vagaries of natural selection, had been entirely unfair to Enjolras, had tipped their hand in his favor far too many times. And having created a man that was entirely Grantaire’s type, they had satisfied their malicious natures by making him entirely out of Grantaire’s league.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Some freshman roommate matches were barely tolerable, while others seemed to have been designed by fate. Then there was the Holy Trinity on the second floor, who had become such great friends within the first two weeks they’d brought three beds into a double and got housing to approve it. Grantaire still had no idea what would compel three such different people as Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras to room together when, oh yeah, they already lived ON THE SAME FLOOR, but he had to admit that it worked for them. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had even bunked their beds.

 

As a world-weary sophomore, Grantaire normally wouldn’t have been at all interested in the drama of freshman housing, but these were special circumstances. Combeferre was actually slightly older than him, having taken a year off to do some sort of butterfly expedition in South America, and they were in the same Earth Sciences class as well as residents in the same hall. On the first day, Combeferre had grabbed the seat next to him, amiably introduced himself and said, “So I heard from everyone who took this class before that the weekly quizzes are the literal invention of Satan. Wanna be study partners?” Grantaire had found himself agreeing fervently.

 

Whatever, he needed to pass this for GERs anyway.

 

He’d almost backed out when Combeferre invited him to have their biweekly cramming sessions in the Holy Trinity room—his single down the hall had more space, even if it was occasionally whiffy with weed. He didn’t smoke in the room, but his asshole friends would occasionally show up with a joint. It was whatever.

 

The first time they studied in Combeferre’s room, Courfeyrac had been studying for his Race and Ethnicity class by mockingly reading aloud every other sentence in a horribly racist Jefferson essay with a ridiculously foppish accent. This was amusing enough that Grantaire hadn’t minded—he studied best with a bit of distraction anyway.

 

Then Enjolras had walked in fresh from the shower and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue. Jesus! He'd known the kid was pretty, but still! There should be a law against attractive people appearing in public after showers with their hair dripping slowly and steadily down their stupidly attractive chests…

 

Grantaire had practically folded in on himself where he was sitting against the foot of Combeferre’s desk, trying hard to pretend he was just a part of the furniture. This didn’t help when Enjolras shrugged off the towel slung loosely around his hips and walked to the other side of the room to get dressed. Grantaire wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed to see the boxers the towel had been hiding, but he was in no shape to comment. Or think coherently. Or do anything but sit there with his legs drawn up and whimper inaudibly for several hours while Enjolras changed into his stupidly well-worn snug jeans and lounged shirtless on Courfeyrac’s bed to do his own reading and banter with rejoinders about the Jefferson quotes Courf refused to stop reading aloud.

 

Background talking was an acceptable distraction, but Enjolras, even sitting silently, was too much to ignore. When doing reading for his own classes, his perfectly golden eyebrows would draw together, and he’d start to bite at his lower lip. When doing problem sets, he’d bury one hand in his hair to concentrate, or sit back and tap his pencil end against his even, white teeth. Grantaire nearly brained himself on Combeferre’s desk the day Enjolras walked in after a run, covered in a light sheen of sweat, earbuds in his ears, humming.

 

The humming, he felt, was especially unfair. The genetic gods who had blessed Enjolras with rosy lips and a face that could have been carved from translucent marble, hair that curled in riotous ringlets around his stupidly sharp jaw, should at least have ensured that he had a hideously croaky voice to even things out. Failing that, they should have given him a vapid interest in his own reflection, like Narcissus, instead of allowing him to swan around like he had no idea how gracefully perfect he looked in a casual slouch against the edge of his desk. And it was seriously, cruelly unfair to have also gifted him with that fire that Prometheus had stolen, which lit his pale eyes from within, making them seem to spark against his light lashes when he focused and really got going on a chosen topic. (Grantaire maybe had a problem with resorting to Greek mythology in times of distress.)

 

Unfortunately for Grantaire, the gods of genetics, or the vagaries of natural selection, had been entirely unfair to Enjolras, tipping their hand in the golden boy's favor far too many times. And having created a man that was entirely Grantaire’s type, they had satisfied their malicious natures by making him entirely out of Grantaire’s league.

 

He completely failed the first two weekly quizzes and changed the dates he studied with Combeferre out of self-defense. Logically, he probably should have washed his hands of the Holy Trinity forever, but he just wasn’t that strong. Besides, Combeferre’s notes were very thorough, and he had a natural gift for explaining difficult concepts in layman’s terms. And Courfeyrac was frikkin’ hilarious.

 

So if Grantaire had to occasionally suffer from tongue-tied hopeless lust when their third roommate came in from his various activist meetings on campus and, more often than not, treated them all to an impassioned recitation of how they were going to save the world today, well… he could live with that. If he made sure to snort and roll his eyes occasionally when Enjolras was getting too idealistic, just to make that fiery attention focus in on him, it really wasn’t his fault. If no one pierced Enjolras’s righteous liberal bubble from time to time, Grantaire was convinced he really might just fly away on the force of his convictions, Defying Gravity –style.

 

The day that Enjolras came into the room dejected was the day it all changed. Grantaire glanced over the edge of his textbook as per usual, to take a lingering peek while Enjolras’s attention was engaged in greeting his roommates—and he stopped and stared. For a revolutionary dandelion-head, Enjolras looked almost wilted. His perfectly straight shoulders were slouched and he slung his backpack to the ground with none of his usual care. Something was horribly wrong.

 

Combeferre was bent over his desk, zoning on math, so the usually less-than-perceptive Courfeyrac was the first to ask about it.

 

“Enj, you okay? What happened, man?” he asked, beckoning over for Enjolras to join him on the bed. It was somewhat expected that Courfeyrac and Enjolras shared their desk and the lower bed between them as study spaces—the desk for serious writing and the bed for reading. Tactile people, they often traded turns using each other’s legs as pillows. Enjolras sighed and sat down next to Courfeyrac, leaning over to rest his head on the other’s shoulder.

 

“I need someone to kiss,” he complained. Grantaire’s head snapped up so fast he bit his tongue. Combeferre jerked in his seat and turned around. Courfeyrac merely raised an eyebrow, looking like he wanted to laugh.

 

“Um… is there something you want to tell us? Are you moving on the spectrum any?” Courf asked, bringing a hand up to pat Enjolras’s curls.

 

“Yeah, last week you complained about the indignity of people ‘swapping spit’ in public.” Combeferre added.

 

“No, I’m still asexual and I still think it’s kind of gross,” Enjolras said with a shudder. “But I really, REALLY need someone to kiss and it kind of has to be tomorrow.”

 

“Um—Explanation?” Grantaire croaked, finding his voice. There was no way this was real life. This was how soft-core porn started. He was pretty sure, his roommate had watched enough of them with the sound on last year. Fucking Tholomyes.

 

Enjolras raised his eyes to meet Grantaire’s briefly, confused. Probably at the lack of eye-rolling. “There’s a kiss-in at the center of campus tomorrow during lunch,” he elaborated. “To protest the new anti-gay marriage law in Oklahoma. And I promised Feuilly I’d help with the demonstration, since he saved my ass at the march last month. So I need someone to kiss.”

 

“I would think you could find someone there,” Combeferre started uncertainly. “Since it’s a demonstration and all.”

 

Enjolras grimaced. “It’s not just a demonstration. Feuilly got Musichetta to write an article and, well, she wants pictures.”

 

“Pictures.” Grantaire echoed involuntarily. Now there was a visual. Enjolras, someone’s hands buried in that perfect hair, a slight furrow in his perfect brows as he held his lips against—he couldn’t picture it. No one could touch that face, not and bring their hand away intact. He could almost see a line of people with their lips half-charred from trying to kiss Enjolras and nearly let loose a hysterical giggle.

 

Combeferre pulled out his schedule to frown at it. “I would like to help you out, but if it’s tomorrow, then I’m already committed to the community tutoring centre until nine. And I’m guessing you wouldn’t really want to kiss me anyway.”

 

Enjolras nodded mutely. “No offense, ‘Ferre, but you’re like my brother.”

 

Courfeyrac shrugged his shoulder, jostling Enjolras’s head against it. “That rule me out too? Cuz I have a meeting with my advisor, but I could put that off.” He waggled an eyebrow in what he probably thought was a playful innuendo. To Grantaire's discerning eye, it looked more like a facial tic.

 

Enjolras shook his head, closing his eyes in mute horror. “No, the only thing worse I can think of than kissing a complete stranger is kissing one of you guys and having it on the cover of the school paper. Aggghhhhh…” He turned away from Courfeyrac and threw himself back flat on the bed. “Feuilly asked if it was okay and I couldn’t say no so I’m stuck with it…” He brought his hands to his face and pressed the heel of his palms against his closed eyes. “I hoped you guys would have suggestions…”

 

“On how to kiss or on who?” Grantaire blurted, unable to stay silent any longer. This might actually be the longest non-argumentative conversation he'd ever held with Enjolras. He was vaguely aware that his act was slipping.

 

“Ideally, both,” Enjolras replied without moving. “I need to practice before the picture if it’s going to be any good. I owe at least that much to Feuilly.”

 

Courfeyrac patted Enjolras’s leg sympathetically. “Brush your teeth before and after so you don’t get sick,” he suggested.

 

“No, mouthwash is better,” Combeferre interjected. “Or you could gargle salt water, but I think that’s better after. Maybe just try not to use tongue?”

 

“But what do you do with your lips? Do you like, mash them together or is there a slow increase and decrease in pressing?” Enjolras held up a hand and squeezed it open and shut slowly as if to demonstrate. Grantaire could feel blood rushing hotly to his face.

 

“I could do it,” he said, barely choking out the words around the lump his heart made as it leaped into his throat. Enjolras’s hand dropped as he rolled to face Grantaire. Courfeyrac grinned, looking between the two of them. “Unless, that is, you’re embarrassed to be seen kissing me,” he added self-consciously, with an attempt at snideness.

 

Enjolras shrugged it off. “Why would I be? Are you sure, though? It is going in the paper. I know you don’t like all of my ‘student activism shit’,” he added in a credible imitation of Grantaire’s eyeroll and finger quotes. Grantaire thought his face must be burning from all of the blood flaming in his cheeks. It felt like his brain was simultaneously working sluggishly and at hyperspeed.

 

“No, that’s fine. I’ve got worse on my facebook, anyway,” he responded with forced nonchalance.

 

Enjolras rolled off the bed with a groan, stretching in a way that made his shirt ride up against the soft curve of his hipbones. Grantaire nearly let out an embarrassing gasp at the sight, but he caught it on the tip of his tongue. Courfeyrac, if possible, grinned harder at them. When he glanced up, Combeferre had gone back to his problem set, apparently losing all interest.

 

  
“So when do you want to practice? After dinner or is now okay?” Enjolras asked matter-of-factly, standing up to walk over to his backpack. Grantaire’s words momentarily deserted him, the traitorous bastards.

 

“Uhhhh…”

 

Enjolras had bent down against his backpack and pulled out his schedule, rifling through it. “I have a brief meeting with the transgender rights group in an hour, but I’m free until then,” he said briskly.

 

“Uh.. Guh…” Grantaire swallowed with difficulty. “Good. I can do…” _you_ , he nearly said, before he caught it. “Any time today. And then tomorrow,” he added quickly. _Or the rest of my life, that’s fine too. God, when had he gotten so hung up on Enjolras?_

 

“Okay, shall we go to your room?” Enjolras picked up his backpack and slung it over one shoulder, looking back at Grantaire. A few strands of hair had escaped his loose ponytail when he lay down on the bed, and he tucked them impatiently behind his ear. Grantaire stood up by force of will and ignored whatever Courfeyrac was cackling about on the bed. If it was about him, he didn’t want to know.

 

Combeferre might have muttered a pointed, "Have fun" at the two while Courfeyrac snickered, but as Grantaire cleared his throat loudly while leading Enjolras out the door, he couldn't be certain.

 

As they walked to his room, he thanked all gods of all religions he knew and some he’d made up that he’d done his laundry this week. His hamper was full of clothes but they were clean clothes, and nearly ready to be folded. His floor was (probably) clear of brownie crumbs from the last time his friends had come over. It might not pass Enjolras’s stringent idea of clean (the guy vacuumed twice a month as a college freshman, for fucks’ sake) but at least there were no overtly messy or criminal items in sight.

 

Enjolras strode ahead of him and leaned against the wall next to his door, looking even more like a marble statue than usual. Up close, Grantaire could see that the effect was due to his uncharacteristic paleness—all the blood had leached from his face sometime in the past five minutes. Grantaire was sure that the same was about to happen to him, but for vastly different reasons. With a glance at the way Enjolras’s eyes stared fixedly at the hall directions as he unlocked his door, Grantaire sighed.

 

“Come on in and don’t be shy,” he invited. “I don’t bite.” A second after he’d said it, he winced at the mental image produced—biting Enjolras? Sinking his teeth into that lower lip that became so plump and worried when Enjolras was concentrating? Leaving a mark on that pristine neck? Guhhhh….

 

He forced his mind away from those thoughts and sternly told his body to calm down as Enjolras hesitantly entered the room. It was probably the first time he’d done so, although Grantaire wasn’t discounting the possibility that he’d poked his head in during one of the more hard-to-remember parties he’d held last semester. God, those had been a bitch to clean up after, especially hungover. He felt the beginnings of a phantom headache just thinking about it.

 

“Nice room,” Enjolras said inanely, looking around. He shifted his backpack off his shoulder, then back on, clearly uncertain. Grantaire ran a hand through his hair and, deciding _fuck it_ , went over to the bed and patted the seat next to him. Enjolras stiffened slightly, but walked over carefully and set his backpack down by the edge of the bed. He flinched a little when Grantaire shifted in response, but sat staring down at his lap.

 

“Don’t worry,” Grantaire said, holding his hands up. “No touching until you specifically ask for it… I just thought this would be more comfortable than one of us being forced to stand due to my abundance of chairs.” His sweeping arm encompassed the room, which was edged with easels and some stacks of sketchpads but nothing resembling sitting space.

 

Enjolras followed the motion of his hand with his eyes. “You don’t have a chair?” he asked. Grantaire bit back a smile at his look of honest perplexity.

 

“Nah, Montparnasse had a bad turn one time and threw up on it and…” he shrugged, trailing off. No real need to go into the story of the shit they’d gotten into with housing. “I’m zen, I live a life free from material clutter,” he said in an ironic tone. Enjolras raised a single eyebrow and eyed the mess on the floor pointedly.

 

“I can see that,” he answered with a hint of a smile. Grantaire noted that, while the color had yet to return to Enjolras’s face, his shoulders no longer looked quite so stiff. So self-deprecating humor got the marble statue to loosen up? Grantaire could roll with that. Hell, his life was the best joke he knew.

 

Projecting a deliberate air of “nothing-going-on-here,” Grantaire let himself lean slightly against Enjolras’s shoulder as he struck up a light conversation about their latest class assignments. His heart thrummed in his chest, making him feel almost giddy as they sat and chatted like two people who weren’t planning to kiss at any moment. God, it was such a rush. He knew, with a gut-deep certainty, that he could not fuck this up.

 

“—And it was the end of the quarter, so by then I’d completely run out of fucks to give when it came time to turn in our final ‘reflection’ piece. And he’d said he liked Lovecraft, so…”

 

“So you turned in a picture of your professor being eaten by Cthulhu?” Enjolras asked, incredulous. Grantaire nodded, smirking, and pulled up the picture on his phone. At some point they'd moved to sitting cross-legged facing each other, so Grantaire held the phone out to Enjolras. Rather than taking it, Enjolras leaned forward to squint at the photo, his warm breath playing lightly over Grantaire's knuckles.

 

“He was really cool, though, gave me an A. Said it could have used more balance in the tentacles but overall good composition.” Grantaire chuckled, but Enjolras stared at the picture and snorted. A couple seconds later he giggled and snorted again. Grantaire watched open-mouthed.

 

“Are you shitting me?” he asked. Enjolras’s shoulders shook, his face turning red as he kept laughing. He curled over on the bed, no longer able to sit up straight. He just. Kept. Snorting. Grantaire pulled his phone back and switched to camera mode.

 

“Gotta warn you, this is prime blackmail video material,” he warned. Enjolras looked up, eyes sparkling with what looked like tears of laughter. His hair was a gorgeous mess, falling haphazardly over his forehead. Grantaire stared, barely maintaining the presence of mind to snap a photo. Miracle of miracles, the phone didn’t make a noise as the shutter clicked.

 

He dropped his hand, set his phone down without looking at it. It was probably almost time for Enjolras to go, anyway. He’d been so focused on making him relax, he’d lost track of what they were here for.

 

Grantaire fancied he could see the realization dawn in Enjolras’s eyes just before he spoke. “So should we practice… you think?”

 

“Yeah.” Enjolras cleared his throat, pulling back slightly. Grantaire noted without surprise that his shoulders were becoming rigid again.

 

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” he offered, squashing his own feelings of disappointment. He’d known it was too good to be true anyway. Drawing back himself, he squared his shoulders, preparing himself for the ache in his chest when Enjolras backed away, apologized, removed himself.

 

“NO,” Enjolras blurted, looking horrified. Grantaire nodded, looking away.

 

  
“I, um,” Enjolras sighed heavily. “I’m just nervous? I’m gonna suck at it. Probably.” He pulled back even more. “And if I start thinking about it, I’m gonna get grossed out.”

 

Grantaire regrouped quickly, hardly daring to hope. “Okay, okay. So, not thinking about it.” He briefly dared to move a little closer to Enjolras, sitting in front of him so their knees touched. It was doing strange things to his heart, this having Enjolras _in his bed_ business. “Let me just try…”

 

He reached a hand out to brush against Enjolras’s cheek, letting his fingers bury themselves in his hair. Enjolras held himself rigid, like he was trying not to react. With his other hand, Grantaire mirrored the action, so he was framing Enjolras’s face, holding that work of living art in his hands. He brushed a thumb against Enjolras’s cheek, riding the curve of the bone.

 

“Are you okay with this?” he asked breathlessly. He felt like his legs were trembling, though he was barely out of a crouch.

 

Enjolras nodded shallowly, without dislodging his hands. Those bright eyes stared intensely at Grantaire. This close he could almost see himself mirrored in them.

 

“Okay,” he said again. “I’m just gonna…” Then he gave up on words and leaned in to press his lips as gently as possible to Enjolras’s lower lip, framing it like he framed his face. He brushed close-mouthed against it, remembering Enjolras’s rant about all the germs present in human saliva and dismissing it. The key was to move before his self-consciousness kicked in and made him a gibbering mess. If Enjolras decided he wanted to be kissed by Grantaire, then by goddamn was Grantaire going to give him the best kiss of his life.

 

Pulling back to take a breath, Grantaire closed his eyes and leaned forward again, daring to meet Enjolras’s lips with his own and press harder, letting Enjolras feel it. He could feel his blood stirring in his lower body but ignored it, all that was important was the life he held in his hands, the thundering heartbeat pounding through those lips, the warm coffee breath across his face as Enjolras exhaled. He felt give, finally, felt Enjolras lean against him like his iron core had reached its melting point, and he smiled against those warm, slightly chapped lips.

  
Taking a chance, he focused back on Enjolras’s bottom lip and let his teeth sink into it ever so slightly. That got him a squeak.

 

Enjolras stiffened slightly and Grantaire pulled back, settling back on his heels while his hands—when had they buried themselves completely in Enjolras’s untidy mane?—reluctantly pulled back. Enjolras was aflame, bright red from ears to nose. Grantaire licked his lips and watched Enjolras’s eyes follow the motion and snap back to his own.

 

“I… uh… Think that was a good practice,” he said, voice rough. Enjolras swallowed.

 

“So, um, tomorrow…” he gestured vaguely with his hands, shifting to get off the bed. _Can’t get out of here fast enough_ , Grantaire noted wryly, pulling back completely to give him space.

 

“I got it. Kiss-in at lunch, campus center. I’ll be there,” he promised, voice fervently sincere.

 

“I’ll text you if I…” Enjolras looked uncharacteristically flustered, stumbling more than once as he made his way to his backpack. Grantaire watched him go. At the door, Enjolras stopped, looking back with an almost horrified expression.

 

“I don’t have your number!” he said.

 

Grantaire closed his eyes. He was still keyed up, and he just wanted Enjolras to get out before he could do something stupid like try to kiss him again or ask him to stay to be painted.

 

“Combeferre has it,” he said, waving flippantly. Enjolras’s brows drew together, but he nodded sharply and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Grantaire lay back on his bed with a sigh, reaching up to press his fingers to his lips. He grinned fiercely at nothing.


	2. Count to Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, I just… I was nervous. I’m an asshole when I’m nervous, I guess? I just wasn’t thinking,” he said earnestly. Grantaire gazed at him contemplatively, like a man deciding whether to grant a stay of execution.
> 
> “Apology accepted,” he said at last. “We should probably get to the demonstration.”
> 
> Enjolras tore his eyes away from Grantaire’s—yeesh, had he been staring at him the whole time? That was embarrassing—and turned his phone back on. Yep, they were definitely almost slightly late.
> 
> He glanced mournfully at the coffee shop over Grantaire’s shoulder and lamented the chai latte that could have been. “Okay,” he said.
> 
> For some reason, Grantaire chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, caffeine freak, you can get your fix later.”
> 
> Enjolras heaved a sigh that did nothing to shake the sudden tension gripping his lungs. “If I survive that long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY, this chapter got away from me entirely due to insomnia. And finals. Thank you so, so much for reading, and I hope you like! Another chapter to follow. Any mistakes are mine, due to lack of beta and it being 4 a.m.

Chapter 2:

Enjolras shut the door behind him and swallowed hard. It felt like his heart was beating too fast, knocking against his rib cage, trying to get out. He couldn’t stop himself from biting his lip and flashing back to Grantaire so close to him, his warm hands caressing Enjolras’s face and making him _tingle_ everywhere those fingers touched. It was like brushing his fingers against chewed electric wire, or feeling static build before a lightning strike. He hadn't been aware the human body could produce this much...  _feeling._

 

Which made it all the more pitiful that he wouldn't get to feel it again after tomorrow. No self-respecting sophomore-- especially not Grantaire, who already thought he was an idiot-- would lower himself to dating a freshman who wouldn't even put out. Enjolras had certainly heard that enough from the more vocal upper-class gay crowd at his first college parties.

 

Barely aware of where he was going, Enjolras stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, corralling his hair back into its ponytail holder automatically. Within moments, the only sign that anything had happened was the flush that had set up residence on his cheeks. Well, it wasn’t like he unused to blushing easily. He wished he had time for a shower, even a quick one, to let the water wash away these muddled, uncomfortable feelings that clawed at his chest from the inside… but a quick glance at his phone showed he had less than ten minutes to get to his meeting.

 

 

“Fuck everything,” he whispered to his reflection, cupping more water in his hands to cool his cheeks before he strode determinedly away. The rest of the night was a battle to keep his mind on the litany of tasks ahead—go to the meeting, contribute to the discussion, finish his reading, prepare an outline for his upcoming presentation—instead of zoning on the sensations that lingered from whatever had happened with Grantaire. When he at last switched off his computer and shoved it under his pillow, too tired to try to navigate the ladder and stow it on the desk like usual, the images and sensations that had been lurking all day gleefully took over his mind. Unable to resist, he shut his eyes and pictured the moment that still made his heart flipflop in his chest and his skin feel like it was too tight all over.

 

In his memory, Grantaire stared at him open-mouthed, then moved closer, impossibly closer. Enjolras had never been so aware of his own body as when Grantaire reached out and captured him, held him still and safe, bracketed him in. He’d felt caught on every side, surrounded by hands, lips, breath, those intense green eyes.

 

He could barely reconcile that overwhelming physical presence with Grantaire, who sat curled up next to Combeferre’s desk, taking up only enough space to curl his lip and say wry, clever things that poked holes in Enjolras’s ideas. That must be why Enjolras was so… caught up in this. Because he hadn’t expected Grantaire to be so…

 

He licked his lips. ‘Big’ was entirely the wrong word. ‘Close’ wasn’t right, either. It was like being caught in a whirlpool, pulled into a black hole. There was a feeling of tightness, of inexorable pull—and then a shift, like whatever he’d been through had changed him somehow, in some invisible but important way. And that bright, sudden pain, Grantaire’s teeth in his lip…

 

A kick to the bottom of Enjolras’s bed brought his tormented brooding to a halt.

 

“Sssstop rustlin’ aroun’ nn go a’ sleep,” Courf muttered, mush-mouthed.

 

Enjolras whispered an apology and groped for his cellphone. Maybe if he listened to one of his favorite political podcasts, he’d be too distracted to think too much about… the kiss. He hoped.

 

Seven hours later, Enjolras moaned piteously as Combeferre’s alarm went off. Resentfully bleary eyes opened a crack, focused on the source of the offending noise, and glared as if they could will the damned machine to break. He didn’t care what Combeferre thought, Dalek voices shouting “Exterminate!” on repeat were not a pleasant sound to wake up to.

 

“’Ferre, kill the noise,” he grumbled, sitting up carefully. The ceiling was low enough that he ran the risk of concussion if he got upright too quickly in the mornings. The world was the fuzzy smear it always was before he put his contacts in, but he could make out no lump of body beneath the blankets on the other bed. Which meant Combeferre was probably already in the shower. Enjolras moaned again, sliding mournfully out of his blankets. He knew better than to hope Courfeyrac would get the alarm.

 

“AGGGGGGHHHHHH,” he complained, maneuvering his sleep-clumsy body down the ladder. It was too early for human things like words. And clothes. The cold morning air against his skin made him wish he’d slept in something more substantial than boxers and an undershirt, but he had too many blankets to attempt wearing anything more. Life, Enjolras decided, was just cruel.

 

After a judicious whack, the alarm ceased its horrible noise. It teetered and fell off the desk. Enjolras smiled a vengeful smile and stuck his tongue out in its general direction.

 

Courfeyrac had slept through the entire thing, breath whistling softly through his nose. Enjolras rolled his eyes, pulling on a shirt from the pile between Combeferre’s and their desk. Because the room was only big enough for two sets of furniture, his clothes were mostly kept in folded stacks under the window. He might eventually order a plastic set of drawers, but for now the system worked. It meant he had to vacuum pretty frequently to make sure his clean clothes stayed clean, but it worked.

 

Yanking the shirt over his head, Enjolras walked over to the foot of Courf’s bed and grabbed an ankle, shaking it vigorously. Courf sat up with a gasp, completely awake in an instant. Fucking morning people.

 

“Mornin’ Enj,” he greeted cheerfully, stretching languidly. Enjolras nodded back at him with a grunt and turned to the next task of the morning—procuring coffee. He didn’t actually know how to use their coffee machine yet, but he had faith that at some point he’d be able to press the right combination of buttons to get magical caffeine juice.

 

Combeferre came in, toweling his hair and smiling broadly. Enjolras barely had time to turn piteous eyes at his roommate before he was gently but firmly maneuvered away from the coffee machine and told to put on pants and wait.

 

Courfeyrac and Combeferre engaged in pleasant conversation about their plans for the day while Enjolras attempted to muster the balance necessary to put one foot, then the other, through the legs of his jeans. He managed not to fall over, but it was a close enough call to set his friends laughing. FUuuuuu--

 

“Here.” Combeferre wrapped his hand around a warm thermos of coffee that smelled divine.

 

Without hesitating, Enjolras put the thermos to his lips and gulped down half the contents before they could cool.

 

“Holy shit,” someone said from behind him. It sounded like Grantaire, which made no sense. Enjolras ignored the voice and took a breath before draining the rest of the coffee. He held it out vaguely to where Combeferre probably was.

 

“More?” he begged. Someone with Courfeyrac’s chuckle took the thermos from him to refill it.

 

“Tell me he did not just chug boiling coffee like it was Pepsi,” Grantaire’s voice exclaimed. Feeling slightly more awake, Enjolras squinted in the voice’s general direction. There was another person in their room who was not tall enough to be Combeferre or wearing bright enough colors to be Courfeyrac. He walked closer, eyes narrowed, until the face came into focus.

 

At any other time, Enjolras might have been embarrassed about standing less than a foot in front of Grantaire, staring directly into the other’s flushed face. But it was morning, before he’d had his second dose of coffee. He nodded, satisfied.

 

“Morning, Grantaire,” he mumbled, turning back towards the person more likely to put coffee in his hands. Courfeyrac had disappeared, but Combeferre was there and would make things right.

 

“Jesus,” Grantaire whispered as he walked away.

 

“Yeah, I didn’t believe it myself, but he actually is a different person in the mornings,” Courfeyrac said, leaning over Grantaire’s shoulder with a smirk.

 

“Gah! Don’t do that, man,” Grantaire yelped, pulling away. “You’re like a damn whisper ninja.”

 

Combeferre looked up, glasses steamed over from his own mug of coffee. “New nickname?” he suggested, lips curled in amusement. Grantaire realized that Enjolras was actually trying to grab Combeferre’s mug from his hands, but kept missing horribly.

 

“Nah, I like Courf better,” Courfeyrac decided. “But keep trying,” he added, patting Grantaire’s shoulder. Combeferre nonchalantly held his mug even farther away from Enjolras’s feebly patting hands, enduring light smacks at his torso as he refilled the thermos by drip. Grantaire watched in horrified fascination.

 

The thermos finally halfway full, Combeferre poured a generous amount of milk and sugar into it before screwing the lid back on and pressing it back into Enjolras’s grasping hands. Grantaire waited for him to slug it back again, but this time Enjolras sniffed the steam and began to savor it slowly. There were moans involved.

 

“So, the book you left is on my desk,” Combeferre said. Grantaire blinked. “The one you came here for,” he added pointedly. Grantaire shook himself out of his daze and swallowed.

 

“Yeah! Thanks!” he said, skirting carefully around Enjolras and his happy coffee noises. Heading to the door, he turned back around to wave vaguely at them all and say, “See you at the, you know, kiss thing.”

 

Enjolras, miracle of miracles, looked directly back at him with heavy-lidded eyes and smiled sleepily.

 

“Jesus,” Grantaire muttered again, rushing out the door.

 

Half an hour later, Enjolras licked the last of his third morning coffee from his lips and paused. “Was Grantaire here this morning?” he asked carefully.

 

Courfeyrac burst out laughing, nearly rolling off the bed where he was pulling on his socks. “Oh, Enjolras,” he gasped between laughs. “Seriously. Never change, bro.”

 

Combeferre patted him on the shoulder and said, “I’m surprised you remember that much, actually. He said he’d meet you at the kiss-in.”

 

And that’s when Enjolras woke up enough to realize what day it was. Fuck. EVERYTHING.

 

He made it through Intro to Composition, Statistics and nearly all of his Poli-Sci class before caving and texting Combeferre, “HELP WHAT IF I CAN’T DO IT.” He normally listened to Professor LeMarque with rapt attention, but dire circumstances required immediate action. Including texting friends during class for sage advice.

 

Then he remembered that Combeferre was in his Chem lab this period therefore unlikely to answer his phone, and texted Courfeyrac the same message. Within thirty seconds he’d received a string of sad-face emoticons and an “I believe in you bro!”

 

Not helpful, to say the least.

 

He bent over his desk, texting furiously, “NOT FUNNY i repeat i CANNOT DO THE KISS HELP WHAT DO.”

 

Two long minutes later, another text.

 

“Close eyes, count to ten, let R work magic! Just don’t eat garlic before.”

 

Enjolras wrinkled his nose. He hadn’t thought about food particles or, or smell or… saliva. God, what if he got mono? Grantaire didn’t have mono, did he?

 

“but what if mono?” he sent back to Courf. Thinking furiously, he added, “can you get hep from kissing?”

 

Courf replied almost immediately with a link to a “let me Google that for you” page. Enjolras was forced to crack a smile at that, even though his hands were beginning to hurt from how tightly he was clenching the phone. His smile disappeared when he read the large text at the top of the page affirming his worst suspicions. Barely noticing the students around him packing their bags, he scrolled down his contacts list to find the newest addition—Grantaire.

 

Tongue caught between his teeth, he tapped out, “you don’t have hepatitis, right?” and pressed send. Maybe he could just bow out gracefully—do a kiss on the cheek? That would count, right? From the right angle, it might even look the same…

 

His phone vibrated. “Wow. No, random asshole?” A moment later, it vibrated again. “You ‘Parnasse’s friend from last Tuesday? Cuz if you got it, it wasn’t from me.” Enjolras felt heat climbing from the base of his neck.

 

“It’s Enjolras. Sorry. I was just making sure, about this afternoon…” He couldn’t finish the sentence before sending it off. The only other student in his row glared at him when he wasn’t fast enough pulling his legs back to let her through. Shit, shit, shit, class was over? He’d missed the last ten minutes!

 

He shoved his pens into his backpack and slammed his notebook shut where he’d apparently doodled pictures of lips in the margins, ugh. Today was the worst.

 

Professor LeMarque was still at the lectern talking to his TA, so Enjolras felt slightly less guilt about not going up with a question like he normally did. With his stuff safely stowed, he shoved his phone in his jacket pocket and followed the slow trickle of students out the door, less than enthused to be on his way. He wanted to ignore the continued vibration of his phone, more texts from either Courfeyrac or Grantaire. He’d nearly made it to the quad where Feuilly was setting up when the vibrating stopped and his phone actually rang.

 

It was Grantaire. Of-fucking-course.

 

Enjolras changed direction, heading for the student cafeteria next to the quad as he answered the phone. The day he was having, he deserved some extra caffeine. Chai latte, maybe, they made good foam.

 

“Hello?” he answered tentatively, nodding hello to the lady working behind the counter. She had sleeve tattooes of abstract patterns, he noted absently.

 

“Seriously, dude, I don’t have hepatitis. Or mono. Or any kiss-transmitted disease,” Grantaire snapped, sounding pretty pissed. Enjolras winced.

 

“Umm…. Thanks for telling me?” he replied. Stony silence from the other side.

 

“I’m much happier knowing it,” he added, joining the back of the short line.

 

Grantaire scoffed. “You really think I’m some man-whore, right? Oh, it’s Grantaire, he must be DISEASED.” His voice dripped sarcasm, but Enjolras thought he heard hurt buried beneath it. Shit shit shit fuck.

 

“NO!” he blurted. The register lady looked startled, as did the one other person in front of him in line. He lowered his voice a little. “No, that’s not—I mean, I’m not judging you—“ Grantaire’s bitter laugh cut him off. Shit. He had to fix this.

 

Nodding an apology to the register lady and the other random bystander, he walked past them and out of the line. “Grantaire, that didn’t come out right.” He tried to force the words he meant out of his lips, but they weren’t coming. Somewhat desperately, he managed to say, “Look, meet me in front of the coffee shop? Next to the quad. I’ll explain, I’m just really not—“

 

A cough came from behind him. “Not good at phones?” Grantaire asked, his voice echoing oddly in Enjolras’s phone.

 

“…No…” he said somewhat lamely, dropping his hand and the call.

 

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment before Grantaire shook his head. “At least you’re awake this time,” he muttered. Enjolras felt his face starting to turn red again. Or maybe it was still red but increasing, with the constant state of mild embarrassment he seemed to exist in.

 

“Sorry,” he said. “For this morning, though I don’t really remember. And for just now. I’m…”

 

“An asshole?” Grantaire prompted.

 

“I didn’t mean to imply you were any sort of… promiscuous!” Enjolras protested, eyes widening.

 

“Just that I had STDs,” Grantaire returned, raising an eyebrow. He looked like he normally did just before he tore Enjolras’s argument to shreds, except more tired. From the bags under his eyes, he probably hadn’t slept very long last night. Enjolras knew how that felt.

 

“You can get hepatitis from sharing needles too..." He trailed off at Grantaire's glare and regrouped. "No, I mean… I was nervous. I’m an asshole when I’m nervous, I guess? I just wasn’t thinking,” he said earnestly. Grantaire gazed at him contemplatively, like an axe-man deciding whether to grant a stay of execution.

 

“Apology accepted,” he said at last. “We should probably get to the demonstration.”

 

Enjolras tore his eyes away from Grantaire’s—yeesh, had he been staring at him the whole time? That was embarrassing—and turned his phone back on. Yep, they were definitely almost slightly late.

 

He glanced mournfully at the coffee shop over Grantaire’s shoulder and lamented the chai latte that could have been. “Okay,” he said.

 

For some reason, Grantaire chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, caffeine freak, you can get your fix later.”

 

Enjolras heaved a sigh that did nothing to shake the sudden tension gripping his lungs. “If I survive that long.”

 

They walked the short distance to the small group already formed in the center of the quad in companionable silence. If Grantaire noticed that Enjolras’s steps slowed perceptibly as they neared, he had the good grace not to comment. It had to be hard for such a germophobe to approach a group full of such enthusiastic PDAs, he figured.

 

Enjolras basically had his eyes trained on his feet as they approached, so the sudden appearance of Feuilly, cheeks cheerfully adorned with smears of different colors of lipstick, was a bit of a shock. His friend grinned at him and captured a hand to press a sincere smack to its back.

 

“Enjolras! Can’t thank you enough, man. Some of the others are okay with being photographed, but they want their faces blurred out, which would just be kinda weird, you know?” he explained. Moving to Grantaire, he beamed even wider.

 

“R! Heard so much about you, man.” He darted forward to press a kiss to the side of Grantaire’s bemused face. “Courf tells me you’re great fun.”

 

“Coming from Courf, that’s a huge compliment,” he returned, feeling his own face stretch into a sincere smile. Enjolras seemed to be edging closer to his side, but even his tense form couldn’t withstand the onslaught of genuine, nonthreatening friendliness that was Feuilly.

 

A girl with exquisitely curled black hair and a camera hanging in front of her bright sundress came up behind Feuilly and grinned at them. Enjolras noted that he could match the shade of her lipstick to one of the smears on Feuilly’s cheeks and hoped she wouldn’t come too close to him. Kissing Grantaire he would put up with, for Feuilly's sake, but he just wasn’t up to being touched by anyone he didn’t know today.

 

“Hi! I’m Musichetta. Ready to photo whenever y’all wanna pucker up,” she said with a charming drawl, raising the camera hopefully. From the corner of his eye, Grantaire saw Enjolras’s shoulders get even more tense.

 

He slipped an arm around them, hoping it was the right thing to do. “Just give us a few minutes and we’ll let you know!” he chirped back, hoping they’d get the message. Musichetta caught on quick, eyes darting between Enjolras and Grantaire before nodding.

 

“Sure, take your time!” she responded, pulling Feuilly away by the elbow. He felt Enjolras’s shoulders give a little more the farther they went.

 

“Do I have to worry you’ll go asshole again?” he joked, turning to face his partner. He wished right away he hadn’t. Fair faces were not supposed to turn that green.

 

“No,” Enjolras croaked. He blinked rapidly, jaw clenched. Grantaire couldn’t help but notice the way his muscle jumped in his jaw, pale as it was.

 

“Just… take a deep breath, okay? We can just do what we did last night,” Grantaire said soothingly, rubbing his hand between Enjolras’s shoulder blades. He was starting to feel kind of bad for Enjolras, which was new for him. He’d never really thought Enjolras human enough to pity before.

 

“..you…” Enjolras whispered. Grantaire tuned back in.

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

“I said thanks.” Enjolras lifted his face to look at Grantaire, his color a little better. “You didn’t have to do, like, any of this.” His hand made a complicated gesture between their chests before he looked away, dropping it back to his side. Still caught in the idea that Enjolras relaxed when he was touched, Grantaire raised the hand that wasn’t rubbing circles on Enjolras’s back and settled it on his shoulder, bringing them fully face to face.

 

“Believe me, it’s my pleasure,” he returned with a wry smile. Enjolras frowned slightly at that, and Grantaire knew it was because he couldn’t see himself in Grantaire’s eyes, how beautiful he was even now with the color half-leached from his face. The hand on Enjolras’s shoulder migrated seamlessly to cup his chin, lifting it just the right amount. They were eye to eye, nearly chest to chest.

 

Courfeyrac’s text flashed in Enjolras’s mind and he gulped. “Close your eyes, count to ten”—easy enough, right?

 

Grantaire’s breath caught as Enjolras’s eyes slid closed, his eyelashes resting lightly against the curve of his cheek. Even with his eyes closed, a trace of a furrow lingered in his brow, the merest sign that Enjolras still didn't know how special he was, how blessed Grantaire was to be standing here so near to him.

 

Grantaire couldn’t have that. Both hands cupped against the curve of Enjolras’s jaw, he pressed a gentle thumb against the strong pulse there, the hummingbird beat. To soothe it, he reeled Enjolras in by increments, pulling that rigid body snug against his own. Then it was the work of a moment to bend slightly and press their lips together, like he’d been thinking of doing since his door slammed closed last night.

 

Just like the first time, Enjolras seemed to relax into him with a trust he never would have expected or dared to hope for. The softness of those lips against his own made him dizzy, made him greedy enough to forget the boundaries he’d been trying to remember. His tongue darted out for a taste and met no resistance, only the bittersweet aftertaste of coffee and cream. Enjolras’s hands came to rest lightly against his hips and he moaned, body entirely on-line and on fire with sensation. It was heady, it was needy, it was—

 

How long had people been cheering around them?

 

Opening his eyes, Grantaire pulled back, looking somewhat wildly at the group that had come to encircle them. Musichetta was snapping photos like a damn paparazzo, Feuilly was staring at them somewhat worriedly, random people were whooping like hyenas and Enjolras—

 

Shit.

 

Enjolras was staring at him with glazed, horrified eyes. Without willing it, Grantaire dropped his gaze to Enjolras’s swollen lips, then followed the downward motion, down his heaving chest to the front of his jeans and back up.

 

Something on his face must have given away his consternation, because Enjolras’s face was crumpling, something suspiciously like tears in his eyes. He was turning, too fast for Grantaire to reach out, he was pushing through the crowd and before Grantaire could force the name from his tongue, Enjolras was off and running.

 

Grantaire ran a hand through his hair, feeling all the elation that had buoyed him up curdle into sick dread at the bottom of his gut. Feuilly had taken off after Enjolras, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch their flight, or see how this shitshow ended.

 

Swearing to himself, he turned his heel and fled, half-running until he made it to Eponine’s dorm and could bring himself to stop. She wasn’t in, but he followed a freshman to get past the lock on the outside door and let himself into her room. Eponine kept it unlocked at all times unless she was asleep within it, which Grantaire respected and accordingly never asked about. He raided her fridge and pulled out three bottles of the cheapest, nastiest beer she kept just for him. With any luck, he’d be on his way to drunk off his head before she came back. The world was always easier to face through a comforting fog of alcohol poisoning.


	3. Coping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He reached the campus gym before realizing it, breath beginning to wheeze in his chest. The student workers manning the desk barely nodded at him when he checked in, obviously used to students arriving out of breath and out of sorts. At this point, he couldn't give less of a shit, just asked them about open practice rooms and caught the key tossed to him.
> 
> It felt like he hadn’t taken a full breath until the door was closed tight behind him-- he could feel the click as it shut like a benediction, a blessing in metallic harmonics.

Enjolras could outrun the footsteps that followed him and the voice that called his name no problem, but the hand that fell on his shoulder pulled him back with all the firm power of an anchor gentling a boat against strong waves.

 

Because it's Feuilly, the hand was followed with a quiet, "What do you need, Enj?"

 

He choked out a laugh. "I don't-- I need to get out of here." His muscles tensed, screaming at him to _go_. His lips were tingling like they'd been brushed by batteries. He resisted the urge to press his fist to them, wipe away until they felt like lips again.

 

Feuilly's hand loosened, so the only thing connecting them was the light warmth of his palm through Enjolras's shirt.

 

"Can I text Courf and Ferre to let them know where you'll be going?" Feuilly asked. No question where he was going, which Enjolras appreciated. It’s not like his friends were unfamiliar with his coping mechanism.

 

"I'll call if I need them, I've got my phone." His voice was steady, unlike his legs, which had started to tremble. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

 

Feuilly patted his shoulder once, stepping back. "Take care," he called.

 

Enjolras barely grunted an acknowledgement before he was off and running again.

 

He reached the campus gym before realizing it, breath beginning to wheeze in his chest. The student workers manning the desk barely nodded at him when he checked in, obviously used to students arriving out of breath and out of sorts. At this point, he couldn't give less of a shit, just asked them about open practice rooms and caught the key tossed to him.

 

It felt like he hadn’t taken a full breath until the door was closed tight behind him-- he could feel the click as it shut like a benediction, a blessing in metallic harmonics. "Just me in here," he whispered to that sound. "Just me, just me, just me."

 

He wasted no time kicking off his shoes and divesting himself of his backpack and over-shirt before he was out on the floor before the mirror, starting his body through the familiar routine of stretches, jumping jacks and push-ups. He made himself take the time to push past the burn of muscles recently used, to deepen the breaths coming too short to his lungs-- but still, it was barely ten minutes before he was up and moving. His jeans were too constraining, he kicked them off in frustration and continued in undershirt and boxers. The conditioned air chilled the sweat rising on his skin but did nothing for the heat burning in his bones.

 

Enjolras's dad had been against letting his son learn martial arts, mostly because he feared repercussions if the boy, already prone to flying into a rage at the provocation of classmates, were taught to use his body as a weapon.

  
Enjolras's mom was the one who'd suggested that learning to release his emotions in controlled ways might help prevent the blow-ups at school-- and that if their son did eventually start fights with his fists, it was better for all involved that he know what to do with them.

 

In the end, Enjolras was allowed to attend a local martial arts dojo from his seventh birthday onwards, and the tiny pixie-haired punk that had first curled his lip at the smell of sweat and bare feet from the mats found something essential within the small dojo.

 

As a college freshman, Enjolras had audited all the martial arts groups on campus, and went to a few sessions each week. All except the boxing group, he didn't like boxing. Grantaire was in boxing--

 

He ended that train of thought. This, the practice room, was not for thinking. It was for muscle memory, painstaking and punishing. He started from the very first forms he ever learned, movements precise and powerful, and worked his way up the years.

 

The first time he did this, it took four hours and he’d nearly collapsed of dehydration before Courf managed to track him down. Not his finest hour. He lasted nearly two hours before Ferre calleds, the buzz of his cell interrupting the harsh silence of his practice.

 

He shook sweat-damp hair from his forehead and picked up. “Hey.”

 

“You have half an hour to shower and get a Gatorade, then we come for you,” Combeferre said without preamble. Enjolras released a deep breath, wincing as the air grated against his dry throat.

 

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” he offered.

 

“You have ten minutes to wash your face and get a Gatorade, we are coming with a change of clothes,” Ferre amended calmly before hanging up. Enjolras let the phone fall back into his open backpack and returned to the practice floor to stretch the ache from his muscles. His legs quivered with every movement, but this time it was from effort, not the tension of before. He refused to call that tight, trembly feeling fear.

 

True to their word, Courf and Ferre came down to see him within five minutes. Courf had shamelessly ransacked Enjolras’s clean laundry to provide him with a full set of comfortable clothes to change into, including the red boxers pronouncing “Vive la France” he’d given Enjolras as a joke on April Fool’s Day. Ferre, the beautiful bastard, had brought Enjolras’s shampoo, a towel and his own ipod speakers.

 

The two swooped in like helping angels to chivvy him towards the showers, picking up his backpack and his clothes in his wake. In somewhat of a daze, Enjolras accepted the items pressed into his hands, and obeyed the pointed prods in his back until he reached the men’s showers. At this point, Combeferre handed the ipod speakers and towel to Courfeyrac and turned to face Enjolras.

 

“Have you eaten anything today?” he asked point-blank.

 

Enjolras frowned, which took more energy than he was used to. “This morning…?”

 

“Nothing besides coffee, then.” Ferre sighed, turning to Courfeyrac. “Play the Bastille cover about single mothers on repeat until he’s out—if he stops complaining about how it depicts sex workers, you have my permission to check if he’s drowned. I am getting this glorious idiot—“ he jerked a thumb at Enjolras, who blinked at him slowly— “something sugary to eat.”

 

Courfeyrac obeyed his directions to the letter, standing outside the door of Enjolras’s shower stall with the song playing faithfully. Wary that he would barge in per Combeferre’s instructions if given cause, Enjolras hummed along to the song as he stood under the achingly hot spray and soaped the sticky, gross feeling from his skin. The lyrics and underlying assumptions still frustrated him, but he lacked the energy to give it the attention it deserved.

 

When he knocked on the stall door, Courfeyrac tossed his towel over to him and cheerfully called out, “Let me know when you want clothes!”

 

Enjolras rubbed his hair sufficiently dry (and probably fuzzed to hell since Combeferre hadn’t brought conditioner) before knocking again. This time, Courfeyrac handed his bundle of clothes under the door so they wouldn’t fall in any puddle.

 

He nearly fell over trying to put both legs through a single pants leg, but he finally got the clothes on the correct limbs in time to push open the door and catch Combeferre’s appraising look. His friend held out two large wrapped cookies and a Gatorade, snagging the towel from over his shoulder.

 

“We should probably wrap your old clothes in the towel before putting them in your backpack,” Ferre mused.

 

“They seriously reek,” Courf added, taking the towel from him and braving the shower stall to collect the clothes. Enjolras uncapped the Gatorade and took a few sips, testing his stomach to see if it would agree. When nothing untoward happened, he unwrapped the first cookie and finished it in three bites, barely tasting it. He almost didn’t notice when Courfeyrac picked up his backpack and stuffed in the awkward bundle of clothes and towel. Combeferre’s arm around his shoulders nearly made him choke on crumbs.

 

“We’re gonna walk you back to the dorm and let you sleep,” Ferre said levelly, the rumble of his deep voice a soothing vibration against Enjolras’s side. “Then, Courf’ll get you dinner while I’m at class, we’ll listen to music after and you can talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

 

Courf came up by his other side, face uncharacteristically tentative. “I’m done with classes today so I’ll be in the room all night if you want to talk before then.”

 

Between his two favorite people, Enjolras merely nodded his head and let them steer his feet. After the shit-tastic day he’d had, the images that had barely begun to leave his mind when his body tired out, he couldn’t speak his gratitude for having the burden of choice lifted from his shoulders for a time. Grateful enough to concede to the worry that had dogged him for hours and murmur to Combeferre, “Tell Grantaire I’ll speak to him tomorrow, too?”

 

Courf’s eyebrows shot up and he stared questioningly at Combeferre. With a warning glare at his inquisitive friend, Ferre soothed, “I’ll let him know.” With no more words, the three left, arms around each other. It was a challenge to get through the doors without disconnecting, but the pealing laughter from Courfeyrac, Combeferre’s grin and the half-smile that tugged at Enjolras’s lips made the maneuver worth it.

 

That was the last part of the day Enjolras remembered until he woke up early the next morning, sprawled face-down on Courfeyrac’s bed with his friend’s loud snores echoing above him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter is pretty self-indulgent in that it focuses on the trifecta and not at all on advancing the plot... but I really wanted to write Enjolras coping. Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> Next chapter for sure will have more ExR interaction and MAY be the final installment. I hope.


	4. Morning Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both our daring heroes wake up and try to avoid confronting their day. To little effect.

Grantaire’s morning:

 

His head banged like an old man on his last dose of Viagra. This unfortunate metaphor got him thinking about nursing home orgies and THAT visual had him reaching for the nearest bottle to bash his head in and erase the images.

 

He moaned grumpily when his questing fingers encountered nothing but mattress, cracking open one reluctant eye. He was in Eponine’s room, which didn’t surprise him, and in her bed, which did. Eponine guarded her sleeping space with more wiry caution than she defended any other possession, which was saying something for a girl who’d pulled a switchblade on ‘Parnasse just last week for reaching for a bread roll from her tray in the student caf. With Herculean effort, he peeled his other eyelid open and suffered through the smeary blur that the world became before his eyes agreed to focus. Rolling over carefully until he reached the edge of the mattress, Grantaire peered down.

 

Sure enough, there was Eponine, curled up on her extra futon with the hideously ugly woolen blankets she must have rescued from a Goodwill somewhere tragic. Her hair was spread in a half-ordered tangle that might have been a braid two days ago, and Grantaire had no doubt that the hand beneath her pillow was clutching something sharp and deadly. For all that he respected Eponine’s twitchy badassery, he had no desire to be stabbed in the shin for trying to get down from her bed.

 

“’Ponine!” he whispered, wincing at the rasp in his head and the echoing pain the sound sent through the corners of his brain. “’Ponine, wake up!”

 

With great daring, he pulled a stuffed animal from the side of the bed (Eponine never slept with fewer than five ratty stuffed bears) and dropped it gently on her curled legs.

 

Within seconds, the bear had been disarmed. Literally. Grantaire hadn’t seen destruction that quick and deadly since his gory ninja movie binge-watch last semester.

 

“Jesus, you’re like a river full of piranhas,” he breathed. Eponine shoved her hair out of her face with the hand not holding the knife and glared at him. “In a good way, you really pull it off well,” he assured her.

 

She snorted. “Get up, go pee, let me get back to sleep,” she ordered, gesturing with the knife. Grantaire gulped, thinking “sharp!” and did just that. He even wrote a note on her desk inviting her to a reciprocal drinking-irresponsibly-night for “the next time Marius gushes about that blond chick he met in FemGen 101”, chuckling to himself as he imagined the furious texts he’d get once she read it.

 

“Bye, ‘Ponine,” he whispered as he gently shut the door behind him. He fancied he heard a Doberman-like growl from behind the door as the lock clicked. That had him chuckling all the way down the stairs, until he passed the rack where he should have parked his bike, parsed out why he’d been too upset to bike over to ‘Ponine’s the night before and had the previous day come crashing back into his throbbing brain.

 

It took an act of supreme will not to just turn around and head back to Eponine’s dark, cozy cave of a room and crawl into her well-stocked beer closet (like a wine cabinet but more organic). The only thing stopping him was the unfortunate boozy smell on his clothes and the sinking feeling in his gut that he shouldn’t actually go late or impaired to his morning drawing class today. If he cleaned up sufficiently in the next—he checked his phone—hour, he could probably grab some coffee and a bagel from the student store before heading to class.

 

With renewed determination, he began the excruciatingly long walk back to his dorm, squinting his eyes almost completely closed against the first rays of sun. At least his tendency to start drinking early in the day and conk out before midnight misled his internal clock enough to let him wake up before the sun. Years of sleeping four-hour nights in high school ensured that he never really overslept, which came in handy when he stupidly signed himself up for art classes that began at 7 a.m.

 

Grantaire was fairly sure that no self-respecting dissolute artist would attempt to put pen to paper, or brush to canvas, before crawling out of bed at the crack of noon, but the teacher of his sophomore Advanced Figure Drawing class had other ideas. Stupid, “healthy” ideas.

 

He groaned and hastened his pace as the soaring walls of his dorm swam into view through his veil of squinted eyelashes. At least no one would be around to see what they’d probably assume was his walk of shame. He could get in, shower and get out with no one—especially a blond, confusing hunk and his unfairly likable roommates—any the wiser.

 

He held onto this comforting hope as he took the elevator to the second floor and walked into the hall, before feeling it crash and burn, along with his heart.

 

Enjolras’s morning:

The digits on the clock read 6 a.m., which was just completely unfair. He was totally and instantly awake, even feeling refreshed from the good, deep ache in his arms and legs—and he had hours of nothing to look forward to before his afternoon classes. And nothing to do in his room that wouldn’t disturb his roommates. Courfeyrac might be able to sleep through anything, but Combeferre had been known to wake at the sound of a coin dropping on carpet.

 

In deference to his sleeping roommates, Enjolras pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans and slunk out with his backpack to work in the hall. He had reading that he’d meant to do the night before, and one pset he should really have started two days ago. Deciding the pset could wait a little longer, he curled up against the edge of the doorframe, pulled his legs to his chest and settled down to read.

 

Or try to read, anyway. Something was wrong with his focus, or his body, or his brain. He couldn’t brush his hair away from his face without remembering warm hands framing his cheekbones, thumbs brushing lightly against his skin. Phantom warmth lingered around his shoulders, phantom weight pressing him down. No matter how much he fidgeted, he couldn’t shrug off the touch that was no longer there. He’d never had his skin tingle like this, like someone else’s fingers had sunk beneath his bones and left their mark in his veins. He couldn’t. Stop. Biting his lips.

 

Thanking the universe that no one was there to see him wriggling around uncomfortably like an arachnophobe who’d walked through a spiderweb, he put his reading to the side and pressed his head against his knees, letting his eyelids burst light displays of purple and green as he pressed them against the backs of his hands.  
He would have laughed, but there was nothing funny about this.

 

“Damn Grantaire,” he mumbled. “What am I supposed to do now?” He shrank further into himself, imagining what Combeferre would say when he woke up. His friend would probably insist that he practice what he was going to say, to alleviate his nerves. He snorted. Practicing wouldn’t help. He had no idea what to say, how to explain it. To his shame, he could feel the anxiety at the thought of even seeing Grantaire again curdling in his stomach, muddying his thoughts with bursts of fear.

 

Taking a quick glance back at his door to make sure Combeferre was still inside and (hopefully) sleeping peacefully, Enjolras sighed and stretched backwards, swiping his hand over his eyes. The weight of his hand against his forehead felt good, like he was soothing the sick whirling that had begun in his thoughts.

 

With his head tipped back and his eyes closed, Enjolras whispered to himself, “Sure, practice makes perfect. I’ll just go up to Grantaire and say, ‘Sorry I was such an ass yesterday, I was just embarrassed because I didn’t expect kissing you to feel so…’”

 

He broke off. There was a shuffling sound from the end of the hall, then the ding of the elevator. Years of students mashing every button had led to some virus that made the thing stop at every floor and open its door, even if no one got off. He assumed it was headed for the third floor, or the fourth—what kind of lazy person with working legs used the elevator to get to the second floor?

 

He restarted his practice, closing his eyes more firmly. “Grantaire, I just wanted to apologize about what happened the other day. I was an ass and you didn’t deserve it. I hope you can forgive me for making things awkward by asking you to kiss me…” His voice deepened as he finally let himself say what had been bothering him since yesterday, “And for enjoying it way more than I should have.”

 

A tentative voice startled him out of his solitude. “Ummmm… Okay?”


	5. Awkward Is My World

Enjolras restarted his practice, closing his eyes more firmly. “Grantaire, I just wanted to apologize about what happened the other day. I was an ass and you didn’t deserve it. I hope you can forgive me for making things awkward by asking you to kiss me…” His voice deepened as he finally let himself say what had been bothering him since yesterday, “And for enjoying it way more than I should have.”

 

A tentative voice startled him out of his solitude. “Ummmm… Okay?”

 

His entire body tensed and tried to draw backward as he opened his eyes and saw Grantaire standing in front of him, swaying slightly. With a yelp that was part shock and part pain from slamming his head against the wall, he scrambled to his feet.

 

Grantaire put out a hand as if to aid him or steady him, but Enjolras flinched away, drowning in mortification.

 

“You can just… forget you heard that,” he muttered, wishing he could turn invisible, sink through the floor or stop existing altogether. All three simultaneously would be nice.

 

Grantaire was looking a bit the worse for wear, with creases in the clothes he’d obviously slept in, but a tentative smile brought light to his face. Enjolras cursed himself for apparently being amusing in his humiliation.

 

“Now why would I want to do that, Apollo?” Grantaire purred, voice rough with something. Enjolras took a cautious breath and deduced from the sour scent hanging in the air that the ‘something’ was probably alcohol.

 

Shifting uncomfortably, he stepped as far back from Grantaire and his attendant smell as his position would allow—which basically entailed pressing himself closer to the wall.

 

“Because…” His mind was unhelpful, focused on the distance between his body and Grantaire’s and how that distance shifted as Grantaire rocked back and forth on his heels. That smile had twisted somehow into a smirk, the one Grantaire had once demonstrated to Courfeyrac as his ‘secret weapon’ for getting people to bed with him.

 

At that reminder, Enjolras finally managed to snap himself out of it.

 

“Because it’s never going to happen again,” he said firmly. Trying to ignore the way Grantaire’s body had stilled, he crouched down to gather his papers and computer. Surely Grantaire would back away when he stood up and they could both awkwardly never speak to each other again.

 

Standing up with his arms full, he tried to grope behind himself for the doorknob without raising his eyes above the floor.

 

“Guess I’ll never be good enough,” Grantaire breathed in a bitter undertone he probably wasn’t meant to overhear.

 

“That’s not—No? Why would you think that?” Enjolras raised his eyes, meeting Grantaire’s red-edged eyes with confusion. The problem had never been with Grantaire. It was  _his_  hang-ups, his identity that made it impossible for anything to happen between him and, well, anyone. If only he'd been aromantic as well as mostly lacking in a sex drive, he wouldn't know to long for what he was missing.

 

“Well, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Grantaire said belligerently. Stepping back, he gestured between them. “You—fucking perfect poli-sci freshman, probably gonna be a senator someday, definitely made of marble. Me—second year fuck-up, probably going to die of liver failure someday—“ He leaned closer, pausing as if tasting the words on the tip of his tongue. “Good enough to kiss for a political event, but not good enough to date.”

 

Enjolras couldn’t take that, not from Grantaire. Not that bitter, self-negging bullshit.

 

“Bullshit,” he croaked. He wanted to do the same gesture as Grantaire, but his hands were full. He settled for shifting the load in his arms so he could stretch one hand out to poke Grantaire in the chest. “You’re the one who’s always looking down on me for being too involved, too idealistic, too much of a stupid optimist. And I can’t date you, you fucker, I don’t like sex!”

 

Grantaire actually swayed with the force of his poke, like the slight touch of Enjolras’s finger against his chest had all the force of a dropping hammer strike. Enjolras suppressed the urge to follow through with an actual strike, just to pin Grantaire down and keep the distance between them constant. He was tired of being pushed and pulled, of feeling Grantaire’s presence tingling at the edges of his personal space.

 

He struck with words instead. "So maybe you think I'm hot and you're a good kisser. Maybe I think you're awesome and... whatever. It wouldn't fucking work! You'd want to move on to someone who can give you everything, not just..." Words failed him. More softly, he said, "I can't give you what you want, Grantaire."

 

From the dumbstruck expression on Grantaire’s face, he seemed unable to form words at the moment. Enjolras swallowed the resignation, the helpless confusion, the semi-violent urges, and finally got the doorknob to open.

 

“So yeah… Sorry,” he muttered, turning to go. The door closed quietly behind his back, cutting off what he was pretty sure was a view of Grantaire petrified like a particularly attractive rumpled statue.

 

Groaning quietly, Enjolras flopped on his bed and buried his face in Courf’s pillows. He was pretty sure he’d get no work done today either, which was a fucking shame, because he’d love to have something to take his mind off of the horror show of that conversation. What had Grantaire meant, he thought Enjolras was too good for him? Wasn’t it obvious that it had always been the other way around?

 

He really wished their room wasn’t right across the hall from the floor’s gender-neutral bathroom. It would make all of this drowning in his humiliation a lot easier if he didn’t have to hear what was obviously the sound of Grantaire showering. If he didn’t have to stuff his head further into pillows to avoid the mental image of Grantaire possibly naked right now. Probably naked. He probably didn’t shower in a swimsuit.

 

Enjolras finally conceded that if he continued burrowing into Courf’s pillows he might actually asphyxiate and rolled over to stare up at the bedframe.

 

“I,” he said in a whisper, “am an idiot.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve always said,” Combeferre confirmed in a sleep-rough voice. The double-take that made Enjolras jack-knife in bed to face the other would have woken Courfeyrac up if their friend had anything less than the magical ability to sleep through disturbances.

 

  
“Did you hear…?” he asked hopelessly.

 

“Pretty much just the last part, these doors are paper-thin,” Combeferre responded, stretching luxuriously. “But I wouldn’t worry about it too much. And you might want to check your bedhead.” He circled a hand around his own head, outlining what seemed like an uneven mock-halo.

 

With distracted ease, Enjolras smoothed his rampant curls down and into their customary ponytail. “Why shouldn’t I be worried? That was like… epic verbal humiliation.” He added with a wince, “Worse than high school speech and debate.”

 

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Combeferre said as he snuggled back into his nest of blankets, “because the shower’s just stopped.” Enjolras considered auto-asphyxiation by way of pillow and whether it would be a faster, kinder death than just slamming his forehead into the bedpost several thousand times.

 

“And in three….” Combeferre paused, tone decidedly smug. Despite himself, Enjolras turned to look at the door.

 

“Two…” That was definite shuffling in front of their door. Probably.

 

“…..One and a half…” Combeferre raised his voice slightly, perhaps to let the person outside know that he was counting. Enjolras’s insides definitely did not flip-flop like dying fish.

 

A timid knock sounded on the door as Combeferre mouthed ‘one’ at him.

 

In somewhat of a daze, Enjolras went to answer the door. Grantaire stood before it, looking very freshly scrubbed and alert. He might have showered cold to get done quicker, Enjolras thought, catching the tremor of an aborted shiver that tapped wet hair against Grantaire’s cheek. And he’d definitely changed into something nicer.

 

“I don't mind, you know, about the.... I already know you're ace and I was wondering if you maybewannagowanadatewime?” Grantaire blurted, voice getting higher and faster as he ran on. Enjolras was pretty sure he’d never seen the cynic blush this red before, or act so flustered.

 

“Uh…” It was his turn to stand open-mouthed and dumbfounded.

 

Running a hand through his still-dripping curls, Grantaire took a deep breath and tried again. Shook his head. Took another deep breath. Gesturing his hand between them in gentle parody of earlier, he managed, “You—only have afternoon classes, supposedly not entirely awake until you've had three cups of coffee. Me—free for half an hour and craving caffeine. Not gonna ask for anything you don't want to give. So... you wanna…” he shrugged and grinned, letting Enjolras fill in the blanks.

 

He glanced back helplessly at Combeferre, who made a shooing motion with his hand like the helpful friend he was. Courfeyrac’s snores continued unabated.

 

“Ummm. Yeah! Just lemme get my stuff,” he temporized, running back inside to check his hair against Courfeyrac’s mirror. Grabbing his backpack, he sped back to the door and let it shut behind him. By his side, Grantaire’s arm brushed against his, leaving warm tingles in its wake.

 

He bit his lip and smiled at him, letting his nerves and his tentative hope show in his eyes. Grantaire must have seen it, got the message, because he smiled back and bumped his shoulder in Enjolras’s as they walked to the stairs. Neither stopped smiling for the rest of the walk to the café, even though it took them significantly less time to begin arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like the world, this chapter ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper... of relief as the author lets this plot bunny go.
> 
> May eventually write more in the same 'verse, but this is them walking off into the sunrise!
> 
> Hope y'all like and thanks for reading :) Come visit at thoughtsthroughfog.tumblr.com if you like.


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